Public Domain

And now for the good part…

As previously mentioned, there is real money in public domain. You only have to figure out how best to go about it, and lucky for you, you don’t even have to think very hard because everything you need to know you will learn from right here.

There are a number of methods you can choose as your main course of action when you turn public domain works into a money making business. Some require a lot of involvement from you personally, while others are more lenient. It is your choice.
However, as a general rule of thumb, effort begets profit. So the more effort you put into something, the more profit you will receive.

You may have heard people making all sorts of claims on how e-books and public domain works can make you an instant millionaire.

Whatever you do, do not fall for this trap. No one becomes a millionaire overnight. Not, unless you bought the winning lottery ticket for tomorrow, and even then, the odds are one in a billion.

Well, sure, there is some decent money in public domain works. Armed with the right knowledge about the process and the willingness to invest time and effort into building a fortune, then there is no reason why you cannot turn this idea into dollars.

**A word to the wise: It is a smart entrepreneur who tries to build a fortune on a project that he or she has some personal interest in. Chances are that you will be dealing with a vast amount of materials and performing a lot of prep work, marketing and sales. Most of these you will find you will have to do yourself. If you are unable to exhibit passion for your own work, then how can you expect the same from your consumers? In the end, even a little passion for your business can go a long way.

Need Proof?

Alright, so there are claims that public domain works can be profitable, but most of these claims are clearly overboard and nothing more than a myth. However, this should not become your reason for believing that everything about profit from public domain is a lie.

The truth is, it is not. And if you want proof, take the following fine examples of persons who made it big because of public domain works and a little thing called “imagination”:

Walt Disney

No, you did not read wrong. We are talking about the “magic” man himself.

Mr. Walt Disney has made a billion dollar fortune on timeless stories that we have always loved, no matter how many times we have heard or read them or how many revisions the tales have undergone. His entire empire is built on characters of these stories, making everything from movies, TV shows, songs, music scores, theme parks, and so much more.

His source? The Grimm Brother’s Collection of Fairy Tales – a public domain work. What Disney did was essentially copy them, tweaked around with the characters’ names, rewrote a happy ending, slapped the whole thing on a piece of film, added some music, and voila! He opened to us a whole new world of magic while he made profit out of it.

Ted Turner

He owns the Turner Classic Movies (TCM), a cable network that earns millions of dollars a year in gross profits. And that is only for advertising. Because most of the movies broadcasted on TCM are classic films that have long since entered the public domain, Ted Turner only pays a very minimal cost when broadcasting.

This is a far cry from other broadcast stations who must shell out millions to pay for royalties and other fees.

As a shrewd businessman, Ted Turner saw the opportunity of a lifetime that public domain offered – re-distributing copyright-free works and earning a fortune as a consequence.

You will find many more examples of rags-to-riches stories around public domain re-selling. Who said this kind of stories only exist in fairy tales? You can create your own fairy tale, too, by turning public domain ideas into dollars.

There are many approaches to creating an e-book. For instance, you can make an e-book by simply reproducing an exact copy of a public domain work, and there are many ways to go about this:

• You can obtain a digital copy of the complete book and redistribute it;


• Or you can scan the pages of the physical book yourself and compile them into one file (usually in PDF format)

An alternative would be to make changes to the public domain work. This is called “modernization,” which is really no more than rearranging the text or the presentation to make the content of the work appear new.

Whichever approach suits you, just remember to make your choice based on what is more convenient and easily accessible to you.

Creating E-Books with HTML

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It is a type of web programming language which is the de facto script all web browsers are based on.

HTML lays the groundwork for the World Wide Web as most web pages are based on HTML files. In addition to that, HTML files, when compiled, also make up a considerable number of e-books. Plus, the script is so simple that you do not even have to learn it to generate an HTML code.

Here are some tools you can use to make an HTML-based e-book:

• Word Processor – This includes word processing programs like Microsoft Word. The “Save As” feature of most of these programs (usually found under the File option) will allow you to save the documents you write as HTML files. All you need to do is to make sure that the documents look exactly like how you want your e-book format to be, then click “Save.”


• E-Book Creation Software – If you are not comfortable using a word processing program to create HTML files, another option you have is an e-book creation software – a special program designed solely to generate or produce e-books. 

E-book creation software ranges in price from free to a few hundred dollars. It is up to you if you are willing to spend your precious bucks for the extra features paid software usually have. Or perhaps, you are satisfied with the features you are already getting from the programs free of charge.

Most e-book creator programs are easy to use, which, of course, translates to increased productivity. Again, it is up to you which one you prefer.

If you feel that you can produce more e-books with an e-book creation software and you do not mind the extra cost so much, then go ahead. Whatever is more convenient for you.

For starters, you can use the following e-book creator software samples to start creating e-books and start making profits:

eBook Compiler Software – A free e-book creator available for download at eBookCompiler.com. Only after you have fully explored the system and tried out all its features and decide to start selling your e-books will you be asked to pay a one-time registration.

     eBook Pack Express 1.7 – A free to try e-book creation software by Caislabs Software available at Download.com. The program is very user-friendly and supports HTML, JavaScript, Flash, MP3, and video files.  The beauty of e-books is that they can be easily downloaded from the Internet, whether direct from a website or as an email attachment. However, downloading can be slow for some consumers, especially if they are not using broadband connection.

E-books that are particularly long can take quite a long time to download and can be a source of hassle for your consumers. Aside from cutting your e-book into mini, easy to download file sizes (which would totally defeat the whole purpose of having an e-book for a product in the first place), the best option you have is to zip your e-book into an archive. This will compress your e-book into a smaller file and will make it easy to download.

  A free to try e-book creation software by Caislabs Software available at Download.com. The program is very user-friendly and supports HTML, JavaScript, Flash, MP3, and video files.